25 Years Later — Bob Ley Remembers the ESPN’s SportsCenter on 9/11

Twenty-five years ago today, Bob Ley and Trey Wingo anchored the SportsCenter that ESPN almost did not put on the air. Wingo argued against doing a show at all. Ley argued that they had to. Bob Ley was hired at ESPN in 1979 and was on the air the day the network launched. Trey Wingo spent twenty-three years there. On September 11, 2001, Wingo was scheduled to anchor the six o'clock SportsCenter. Ley was off that morning. By the afternoon both were in the building, in a meeting, trying to decide whether covering sports on that day was journalism or an insult. Wingo says he was wrong. Ley says nobody in that room was wrong, and that the only thing that mattered was that everyone in it was telling the truth about how they felt. In 2018, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum mounted a special exhibition on sports after the attacks. Ley visited it once. Standing in the dark at the back of the gallery, he watched strangers stop in front of a screen and watch the hour he and Wingo had done seventeen years earlier. They also talk about the week that followed. Paul Tagliabue closing the NFL office and sending everyone to find a house of worship. Pete Rozelle's decision to play after the Kennedy assassination and the regret he carried for it. Larry Bowa finding out live on the air that the Phillies had turned their bus around. Jack Buck in St. Louis. David Letterman and Jon Stewart going back to work. Mike Tirico taking his kids to a high school football game because it was the only sport left. The Mets and the Braves at Shea Stadium, and Mike Piazza. President Bush walking to the mound at Yankee Stadium in a bulletproof vest and throwing a strike. Twenty-five years on, a large share of the country has no working memory of that day. That is the reason this conversation exists. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.